Saturday, April 19, 2014

Sporting KC Destroys Montreal Impact 4-0.

For the first 70 minutes of tonight's Sporting Kansas City match with the Montreal Impact, it seemed like the home side was content to let Montreal do their scoring for them. While Aurelien Collin celebrated the tally in the 31st minute, it was actually an own goal off the head of midfielder Calum Mallace.

That changed in the 71st minute when Collin got to celebrate a goal he did score, a real turf-burner that sneaked past Perkins to double Sporting KC's lead.

Three minutes later, Dom Dwyer nets the third. Jacob Peterson put a low cross in from the right wing that Collin said in the locker room he made a dummy run on before Dwyer popped it in. Personally, I think he messed up the backheel, but I'll give the MLS Cup MVP the benefit of the doubt.

Then three minutes from full time, Dwyer topped off the scoring. Graham Zusi played in an inch-perfect cross to Dwyer in the penalty area. All Dwyer had to do was make contact to get the ball to go in, made more impressive by the fact that he was airborne and falling away from the ball.

It was good to see the effort Sporting KC put in tonight. The game seemed to get off to a sluggish start, and it seemed like Sporting KC was knocking the rust off after not playing for two weeks, but after some halftime adjustments, it seemed like they were firing on all cylinders. When you end up with more than sixty percent of the possession, you probably did something right.

Next up for the club is a road match in the cavernous Gillette Stadium to take on the New England Revolution. It will mark the first match for Teal Bunbury against his old club following the offseason trade. Kickoff is set for 6:30 CDT.

Saturday, April 5, 2014

Life's Not Fair

Whoever said life was fair surely didn't watch Sporting Kansas City play Real Salt Lake tonight in a rematch of the 2013 MLS Cup final.

If life was fair, Sporting KC would have scored at least three goals. They should have had at least two, but one was cleared off the line in the first half and Jeff Attinella made a spectacular save to deny Benny Feilhaber a Goal of the Week nomination. In fact, if Attinella does not get Save of the Week, there's something wrong with the whole process.

Sporting KC out-shot RSL 20-5, with nine of their efforts actually on frame. Attinella saved eight of those, the other having been cleared off the line by Nat Borchers.

There seems to be something about the visiting team's locker room that turns the opposing goalkeeper into Superman. This is just the latest example. But as Peter Vermes said in the postgame press conference, teams have to bring their "A game" to come play this club.

RSL also wasn't able to take advantage of an 83rd minute red card to Sporting KC midfielder Oriol Rossell. Sporting KC's possession percentage dropped, but they still managed to keep more than half of the ball. One factor in that would be Sporting KC's passing accuracy, 82.3 percent in the second half.

Sporting KC played well, despite what some fans seem to think, one even saying Graham Zusi's been poor all season. Really? He was voted Player of the Week for his performance against Colorado, with a goal and two assists. Some people are just dumb and I can't help that.

The club has next weekend off before returning to Sporting Park to play the Montreal Impact on April 19th at 7:30 p.m.